Road to Drunken Anachronisms

Before we had internet memes, we had sayings. Before sayings, we had proverbs. These were things like “a penny saved is a penny earned”, “two wrongs don’t make a right” or “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

The proverb I want to talk about is “a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts”. Honestly, I don’t remember even 60% of the things I say when I’m drunk, so I can’t tell you if that’s true or not. However, more than once, I’ve been enjoying my coffee and watching Meet The Press on a Sunday morning, and my phone will start blowing up with Facebook alerts because Drunk-Me posted something inappropriate the night before. Reading what I posted is often embarrassing, but admittedly it usually makes me snicker. In those cases, the drunk man’s posts were a fair reflection of the inappropriate thoughts usually contained in my sober mind.

Several months back, I found a bunch of Gene Autry songs in my digital music library. Apparently Drunk-Me is much older than I am, but he’s pretty tech-wise for a man of his advancing years. He’s also not averse to a little digital piracy. Most recently, Drunk-Me bootlegged all 6 Bing Crosby & Bob Hope Road Movies, even Road to Hong Kong from 1962, which doesn’t even have Dorothy Lamour in it. I don’t remember if I was being thorough or if I’m just a jerk.

Drunk-Me is a tech-savvy octogenarian with a rude sense of humor, a completist’s attention to detail and a lax opinion of copyright law. That’s the sort of guy I’d like to have a beer with. In fact, I hope to never have a beer without him. In the road movie of my life, Drunk-Me is the Crosby to my Hope. Or is he the Hope to my Crosby? Are we both Hope? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this level of introspection.